Worried parents want zhongkao pushed up to avoid heat

• Source: Global Times
• [09:44 June 21 2010]
• Comments

Parents wait for their children to finish their high school entrance exam Sunday afternoon outside Xiangming Junior High School. Photo: Zhou Ping

By Zhou Ping

As students in Shanghai com­pleted the final day of zhongkao, or the national high school en­trance examination Sunday, worried parents complained that the exam date should be moved earlier when the weath­er is cooler to give students ev­ery opportunity to perform at their best.

Parents argued that the two-day test, which began on Satur­day, the hottest day of the year so far with temperatures hitting 36 C, should fall in line with the scheduling of gaokao, the na­tional college entrance exami­nation, which has since 2003 been held in early June instead of July due to similar weather concerns.

Worried parents said that their children, some of whom were forced to write the exam in classrooms without air-conditioning, may have done poorly as a result of the heat distracting their concentra­tion. Some schools without air-conditioning resorted to using fans, or keeping buckets of ice inside the rooms to bring down indoor temperatures.

“I’m worried my son may have suffered from the heat,” a mother surnamed Lu at the Xiangming Junior High School, in Luwan district told the Global Times Sunday. “He needs every advantage he can get to score well so he can get into a good high school, which will help him get into a prestigious university.”

Lu said that the exam should be carried out before the start of huangmei season, or plum rain season, when hot, humid weather descends upon the city.

“My son’s classroom had no fans, or ice yesterday morning, but thankfully, ice was brought in during the afternoon,” said another mother surnamed Lin whose son was also taking the test in Luwan district.

But not all parents saw the sticky temperatures as a disad­vantage to their children.

“The test date shouldn’t be changed just because it’s hot outside,” Sheng Liming, a fa­ther waiting for his son at the same school, told the Global Times Sunday. “Children to­day have it too easy; it’s a good lesson for them to experience tougher conditions.”

Over in Changning district, Wu Zijian, headmaster of Ji­anqing Experimental School, agreed, saying that handing ev­erything to students on a silver platter is not the answer.

“Does that mean students should also be excused from class just because it’s hot out?”

Meanwhile, though many students were heard whining about the hot temperatures Sunday, Ma Zhonghui, a stu­dent who wrote the test over the weekend, said her performance was unaffected by the weather.

“We had fans in our class­room,” she said. “If I did badly on the test, it was because I didn’t study hard enough, not because it was hot.”

In the past decade, over half of the national high school en­trance exams have taken place during hot, humid weather, or during thunderstorms, accord­ing to a report Sunday by the Shanghai Morning Post.